PAZZO’S CORTINA RADIAL RECORD!

> DANIEL NUNZIANTE CONTINUES TO TEAR UP RECORD BOOKS WITH HIS INSANE TWIN-TURBO CORTINA

DANIEL ‘Pazzo’ Nunziante has once again made history by becoming the quickest guy in the country on radial tyres. At the APSA Grand Finals at Sydney Dragway in late November, Pazzo went 6.58@221mph in his twin-turbo big-block Cortina, beating his previous best of 6.77@228mph.

Why the lower mph? “I’ve been pulling the ’chutes early recently just so I can stop in time,” Pazzo explained. “I’ve ended up in the nets at the end of the track a few times and it’s not ideal. It probably could go 6.40s or maybe 6.30s, but stopping such a heavy car at those high speeds is a bit of a problem.”

What makes Pazzo’s new Aussie radial record even more impressive is that his car isn’t a crazy full-chassis build, or even a three-quarter car. “It’s a standard-suspension car, so we use all the original mounting points and chassis rails,” he said. “Craig Burns at SCF Race Cars did all the fabrication and we only modified the front end so we could fit the engine in. From the firewall back it’s all standard.”

And that engine, as you would expect, is a serious bit of kit. Built by Glenn Wells Engines, it’s a 632-cube big-block Ford with twin Precision 98mm Promod turbos pumping around 40psi. Tuned by Kevin Fiscus, it makes around 3500hp at the crank. But obviously you can’t throw all of that grunt at a radial tyre and expect it to hook up, so Pazzo uses an AMS-2000 computer, which manages boost so that the car launches clean.

The transmission is a two-speed TH400 built by Proformance Racing Transmissions in the US, with a Protorque converter, and Matt Despirt from MDT handles the maintenance. The rear end is an SCF custom-fabricated nine-inch housing with a Mark Williams centre.

Pazzo’s Cortina has been at the top of the Radial Outlaw charts for quite a while now. He became the first to run a six-second pass on radials in 2014, going 6.89@222.84mph, and before that he had a lot of success in the Mod Street class where he was the first to go 200mph. “I really like the radial racing because it’s small-tyre, no wheelie bars and you really have to drive the car,” he said.

So what’s next? “I’ve got a new car in the build at the moment that’ll also be for radial racing. It’s a Fox-body Mustang that’s going to be a lot lighter than the 3240lb Cortina. It’ll have a carbonfibre body and similar engine to the Cortina,” Pazzo said. “I’m hoping to run fives with it – on the same 315 radials as the Corty.

“I’d like to thank everyone involved in getting the car to where it is now: Glenn Wells Engines; Kevin Fiscus; Proformance Racing Transmissions; Matt at MDT; Craig at SCF Race Cars; Speedpro; Lucas Oils; Turbosmart; Alfa Fibreglass; and Protorque Converters.”